He shook his head. “No. Only a part.”
“One of three,” Peyton whispered, almost to herself.
“Yes. The cure is Rapture.”
“How does it work?”
Another explosion rocked the building, this one stronger.
Those were missiles from the sea. They’re firing on the island.
Lin grabbed her daughter by the arm. “Peyton, it’s time.”
She pulled away. She wouldn’t leave. She couldn’t. Everything she’d gone through in the past two weeks had been for this exact moment. It all led here, to this turning point.
Peyton had finally realized the entire truth. Desmond had discovered what Rapture was. He had called her to warn her. And though he didn’t know then why he was warning her, it was clear to her now: he had known that Yuri and Conner would try to capture her—to use her as leverage. She alone connected all the critical players who could stop the pandemic: Lin, Desmond, William, and Andrew. She alone could be used to control all of them.
“They’re going to use Rapture for some sort of alteration, aren’t they? They’re going to change human biology.”
Andrew and Lin both stared at Peyton in disbelief—or perhaps with admiration that she had put it together so quickly.
Andrew gazed down at the manufacturing floor as he spoke. “The nanorobots are designed to take additional instructions after they neutralize the virus. Their size limits their memory capacity.”
Peyton marveled at the plan. Research was already ongoing that used nanorobots to insert genes into a host, altering its genome. The nanoparticles could cross the blood-brain barrier, allowing them to alter pathways in the brain and the biochemical balance. That must be what happened to Desmond. He used Rapture Therapeutics’ core Rapture device—the nanorobots—to block his memories. Rapture—the nanorobots—would give the Citium an unimaginable control over the human race, the power to alter every person at a cellular level. All the Citium had to do was send additional instructions to their nanorobots after the virus was eliminated.
Which meant that was the key to stopping them: preventing the Rapture nanorobots from getting further instructions. That would take away the Citium’s power.
She looked at her brother a long moment. They had radicalized him. Peyton wasn’t sure if she could make him see the truth, but she had to try.
“Andrew, think about what they’ve done—how many people the Citium has killed. If they control Rapture, imagine what they’ll do.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand—”
“I do. I’ve seen it. The stacks of dead bodies. Andrew, Dad’s alive.”
The words shocked him. “Impossible.”
To Peyton’s surprise, her mother spoke up. “It’s true, Andrew. Yuri tried to kill him, but he survived.”
He stepped back, away from them, wincing as he tried to come to grips with the information.
Peyton sensed that this was the moment to make her move. “Andrew, can you disable the remote access? Prevent the Rapture nanorobots from taking additional instructions?”
Andrew said nothing, but Peyton still knew him well enough to read him. She could see that she was right: he could stop this.
“Do it. Please. It’s the only way to stop them. I’m not leaving until you do.”
His eyes flashed to her. “I’ll have you dragged out of here.”
Another explosion rocked the building. All four of them crouched as more ceiling tiles rained down.
“You’ll have to drag me out too,” Charlotte said.
Lin walked over and stood next to Peyton and Charlotte, silently showing her willingness to stay as well.
“Listen to what we’re saying,” Peyton said. “They’ve brainwashed you, Andrew. We’re telling you the truth. Please, do it. Even if you drag me out of here, I’ll never forgive you if you don’t stop them right now.”
Andrew stared at Peyton, then Charlotte, then his mother, and finally out at the factory floor.
“Trust us,” Peyton said. “Nobody cares about you more than the three of us. Believe what we’re telling you.” She waited a moment. “I’m willing to die to try to stop the Citium. They’ve killed people I cared about. Tried to kill Dad. They took you from me, Andrew. This isn’t who you are.”
“I don’t care what the Looking Glass is,” Charlotte added. “This world isn’t perfect, and that makes it worth having. Just like you.”
Another explosion shook the building, much closer this time, with far greater force. The glass walls overlooking the massive manufacturing machines exploded outward, raining glass down. A tall cabinet overturned, barely missing Charlotte.
Andrew was at her side in an instant, pulling her away.
“You okay?”
She nodded.
Charlotte gripped Andrew’s shoulders. “Please.” She pulled him closer to her. “Please, Andrew.”
Like a wall crumbling, his hard expression dissolved. He smiled a remorseful, yet kind smile. Peyton saw then the older brother she had grown up with, the brother who had helped take care of her in the years after their father was gone.
Slowly, he nodded. “Okay.” He moved to a raised table with a computer terminal. “I can disable the remote access to the Rapture nanorobots from here and remove the backup program from the Rook servers.”